THE EXPERIENCE OF WAR

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THE EXPERIENCE OF WAR

• Jonathan Davies
• (Powerpoint will be on the website)

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War, its conduct, cost, consequences and
preparations for conflict, were all central to
history in the early modern period. As European
exploration and trade linked hitherto separated
regions, so force played a crucial role in these
new relationships and in their consequences.
Conflict was also crucial to the history of
relations between Euopean states, as well as to
their internal histories.Jeremy Black,
European Warfare, 1494-1660 (London, 2002), p. 1.
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Since the 1970s attempts by historians to
provide generalised explanations about the
connections between the development of armed
forces and the transformation of early modern
Europe have been centred on the Anglo-Saxon
Military Revolution debate. Jan Glete,
Warfare at Sea, 1500-1650 Maritime Conflicts and
the Transformation of Europe (London, 2000), p. 9.
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• What is the Military Revolution thesis?
• How has the Military Revolution thesis been
  criticised?
• What is the Naval Revolution debate?

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Michael Roberts, The Military Revolution,
1560-1660 (Belfast, 1956)
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Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden 1611-1632
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Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution
Military Innovation and the Rise of the West,
1500-1800 (1988 2nd ed. Cambridge, 1996)
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A musketeer
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Battle of Breitenfeld, 1631
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Battle of Lützen, 1632
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(No Transcript)
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Critics of the Military Revolution Thesis

• Jeremy Black, A Military Revolution? Military
  Change and European Society, 1550-1800 (London,
  1991)
• J.R. Hale, War and Society in Renaissance Europe,
  1450-1620 (Leicester, 1985)
• M.S. Anderson, War and Society in Europe of the
  Old Regime, 1618-1789 (Leicester, 1988)
• Frank Tallett, War and Society in Early Modern
  Europe, 1495-1715 (London, 1992)

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John Childs, Warfare in the Seventeenth Century
(London, 2001)
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F.C. Lane, Profits from Power Readings in
Protection Rent and Violence-Controlling
Enterprise (Albany, NY, 1979)
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• Charles Tilly, War-Making and State-Making as
  Organized Crime, in Peter B. Evans et al. (eds),
  Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge, 1995), pp.
  169-91.
• Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European
  States, AD 990-1990 (Oxford, 1990)